I can Love You like That
by Mother Nature's Daughter
Summary: A oneshot written with the song, ‘I can Love You like That’, about Charlie and Claire. No real plot, set during the course of season one. UNASHAMEDLY FLUFFY.


**Disclaimer: **BLAH!

**Author's Note:** My memories of season one are a bit fuzzy, so forgive me if something's wrong or anything like that. Some of the fic is based directly off happenings in the show, and others are some I entirely made up because of the song lyrics. I trust you'll be able to tell the difference between the two. And also please note how I conveniently left out anything about the time when Claire was mad at Charlie for multiple reasons. Must have forgotten or something. Hmm, how did that happen…? Hee hee.

I can Love You like That...

_They read you Cinderella _

_You hoped it would come true:_

_That one day your Prince Charming _

_Would come rescue you._

The scratch-scratch-scratch sound of pen against paper filled Charlie Pace's ears as he lazily approached the source of the sound: a pretty young woman, eight months pregnant, writing in her journal. He smiled at the sight of her.

"Hey," he said coolly, sitting down next to her and nudging her with a shoulder. His small smile became a full out grin when she looked up at him, blue eyes twinkling. "What're you writing?"

Claire Littleton smiled secretively. "Words," she replied nonchalantly, bending back over her little journal and continuing where she had left off in the entry. Charlie sat in silence and watched her a few moments before he nudged her again, forcing her to look back up at him.

"What do the words say?" he asked.

She laughed. "Nothing of any importance to _you_." She nudged his shoulder with her own, just like he had done. Charlie rubbed the spot on his arm where she had touched him, shooting her his best puppy dog look. It worked; with a sigh of resignation, she said, "I was writing about Cinderella."

"Yeah?" Charlie prompted. He cocked his head adorably, curious to hear more. "Why?"

Claire looked down, embarrassed. "Well, it didn't start out about Cinderella. Just the more I wrote, the more I wished that I was Cinderella."

"And why's that?" He scooted closer to her, like he was going to read the entry over her shoulder. She closed the book with a _snap_ and shot him a "oh, no you don't" look.

"No, Charlie," she said, like a scolding mother. "I'll tell you, but you can't read my diary." She put a hand on her stomach gently, lovingly. "I was actually writing out some old frustrations over Thomas, the baby's dad. He wasn't exactly the Prince Charming I had him chalked up to be." She paused for a minute, remembering. Then: "And all that lead to me writing about finding a real Prince Charming."

She looked at him like she expected him to laugh, but Charlie would never dream of laughing at her, not ever. Instead he asked, almost hopefully, "And how's that going; have you found another Prince yet?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe," she said, a shy sort of smile on her lips.

Charlie grinned. "Make sure to let me down when you do," he said.

"I most definitely will, Charlie."

_You like romantic movies;_

_You never will forget_

_The way you felt when Romeo kissed Juliet._

_All this time you've been waiting,_

_Well you don't have to wait no more…_

"I love movies," Claire was saying to Charlie a few days after their Prince Charming conversation. He listened intently, comprehending her words, but more transfixed by the sound of her voice: "I had quite an impression DVD collection back home." She smiled, and then her face changed. "But I don't suppose now I'll ever get to watch another movie again." She turned her head and stared at their captor, the ocean, imprisoning them.

"We'll get rescued soon, Claire," Charlie said sincerely; he had to believe it for himself. But they had already had that talk thousands of times: their rescue. So instead of continuing it, he asked, "What movies were your favourites?"

Claire hummed in thoughtfulness. "I liked all kinds," she said, "but I am still a girl, you know. I have to say romantic movies were always good. Especially," her voice turned wistful, a romantic sigh, "I really liked Romeo and Juliet."

Charlie laughed. "They died in the end!" he protested half-heartedly, teasingly.

"Still, though," Claire said. She cupped her chin in her hands and turned her head to stare at him. "It was really sweet, how much they loved each other. I wish I had someone like that. Even as a little girl I wanted for something like that to come along."

His face suddenly grew more serious. "Did ever think maybe," he began, "that your waiting might be over?"

She smiled at him, softly, sweetly. "I do sometimes wonder if it is," she replied.

_I can love you like that_

_I can make you my world._

_Move Heaven and Earth if you were my girl._

_I will give you my heart;_

_Be all that you need._

_Show you you're everything that's precious to me._

_If you give me a chance…_

_I can love you like that._

It was late at night on the island; dark but not frightening, instead it was quiet, calm. In fact, it was as peaceful a moment as Charlie had experienced for a long, long time. He lay on his back in the sand, watching the stars. And beside him sat Claire, unable to sleep because of the baby.

"Thanks for keeping me company, Charlie," she said in the silence, the sound of the waves against the shore a beautiful background noise. He sat up to meet her gaze; seeing the stars reflected in her eyes. He smiled.

"No problem," Charlie assured her, impulsively taking her hand in his, interlocking their fingers. She squeezed his hand gently and he leaned back again, contentment flooding through him.

"Anything for you," he said.

_I never make a promise_

_I don't intend to keep._

_So when I say forever,_

_Forever's what I mean._

Charlie never will forget the day he'd brought Claire her promised peanut butter; yes, it had only been an empty jar; yes, it had all be pretend. But Claire was still so obviously pleased with it, and Charlie would have done anything just to see her smile like that.

"Thank you, Charlie," she said, not for the first time. She sat spread out on the beach, the book she had been reading forgotten on her lap. She held the sacred peanut butter jar in her hand. She looked at it and laughed. He grinned.

"Hey," he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "I promised you peanut butter, didn't I? So peanut butter's what I got you. I told you I'd always take care of you, Claire." He squeezed her shoulders in a gentle one-armed hug.

She looked up at him. "Always?"

"Always and forever," he promised.

_I'm no Casanova, but I swear this much is true:_

_I'll be holding nothing back when it comes to you._

_You dream of love that's everlasting,_

_Well, baby, open up your eyes…_

She had moved to the caves now, with a lot of the others, with him. Charlie felt good, knowing she was close by and safe. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to Claire or the baby. Somehow he had ended being the one to decide to take care of her; he had appointed himself her protector.

But he also just loved sitting by her, talking with her—especially Charlie loved making her laugh.

"Charlie!" she said brightly, her face breaking out into a smile of pure happiness at seeing him. Charlie adored the way she looked at him in moments like this; he knew he was probably grinning like a fool at her in response.

"Good morning," he said conversationally, sitting beside her. She had her diary out again, was writing some other inner thought she enjoyed keeping from him. Sometimes Charlie suspected she was only not telling him what she wrote because she liked teasing him. Like today.

"Before you ask," she began, "I'm not telling you what I'm writing."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Did I say anything? Did I even look over your shoulder in harmless curiosity?"

"Not this time," Claire admitted, "but I knew what you were thinking. And it's not for you to know that I was writing about Casanova." She laughed like her letting it slip was an accident and she hadn't meant for him to hear.

Charlie shook his head. "First Cinderella, and now Casanova? You certainly do write about some bloody random things," he said. He cocked his head in that way of his, like he was thinking. "Casanova… The man-whore?"

She made a sound like she was appalled and hit his shoulder. "He was not!" A short pause. "Okay, maybe he was a little… Or a lot." She smiled foolishly.

"Now why do you want to write about a bloke who wants to sleep with every woman in the sodding world?" As he spoke, Charlie widened his eyes as if a thought had just come to him. "Actually, that doesn't sound so bad. Maybe that Casanova was on to something."

Claire hit him again, harder this time. "Charlie!" she gasped.

He grinned at her. "I think what Casanova's problem was he never found the right girl to settle him down," he said smartly. Really, Charlie thought he should at least know what he's talking about here; he was a rock star and junkie, after all. "He wouldn't have slept around so much if he had found her, the girl that made all other girls, by comparison, seem like a waste of his time."

Charlie felt a large satisfaction in the way Claire seemed to melt at his words, the way she smiled up at him adoringly, the way she reached out to take his hand in hers. Charlie interlocked her fingers with his, saying as he did in that cheeky way of his, "Oh, yeah… I can be romantic."

Claire laughed.

_I can love you like that_

_I can make you my world._

_Move Heaven and Earth if you were my girl._

_I will give you my heart;_

_Be all that you need._

_Show you you're everything that's precious to me._

_If you give me a chance…_

_I can love you like that._

Charlie blamed himself when Claire was taken; for those days and nights she was missing, he was continuously beating himself up. But now she was back, she had escaped. He was overjoyed, despite her apparent memory loss. The fact that she had forgotten him cut through him like a knife, but all the really mattered was that Claire was alive. And Charlie was determined to never let anything bad happen to her ever again.

"How're you?" He asked dotingly when he approached her one afternoon. He wanted to help her in any way he could, help her get her memory back, help her to remember all their conversations; remember all their smiles; remember all their laughs…to remember him.

Claire smiled. "All right."

He handed her the book in his hand. "It's yours," he said, "your diary. I thought maybe if you read it, it might help you remember."

She took it and looked at it curiously, flipping through some of the pages, skimming it. She saw his name, Charlie, in there quite a few times. "You're in here a lot," she told him, surprisingly not at all embarrassed to tell him this. He might have already known, he did have the diary after all.

"We spent a lot of time together," Charlie explained, secretly very pleased to learn this bit of information about her opinion of him.

"I can see that." She looked up at him smiled, and it reminded Charlie of the way she used to look at him before Ethan took her. He couldn't help but grin back at her. "I really liked you, didn't I?" Something else she had just blurted out. Did amnesia make someone confident as well?

Charlie laughed. "Yeah, I think you did," he agreed. He shot her the smallest of smiles, wishing her to remember. "We got on pretty well, I think. I used to tell you I would always take care of you." His voice was suddenly bitter, not at her but at himself: "Not that I did a very good job of that in the last few weeks."

Claire looked down at one of her diary entries, written her own hand. '_In a scary place like this, Charlie makes me feel safe.'_ She smiled slightly. "But you did take care of me, Charlie," she said quietly, barely loud enough for him to hear. "You really did."

_You want tenderness, I got tenderness;  
And I see through to the heart of you.  
If you want a man who understands  
You don't have to look very far…_

Charlie cradled the baby in his arms. Claire looked on from nearby, smiling, watching him hold her baby. The unnamed child didn't seem to mind that his father wasn't the one holding him; and really, neither did Claire. There was something right about Charlie holding him.

"Hey there, Turniphead," Charlie said softly, because he thought the baby's head resembled a turnip, and as of yet Claire hadn't given the baby a name. He held that sleeping baby a bit longer, and then handed him back over to Claire.

"Thanks," she said, hugging her baby to her. She smiled at Charlie. "You're so gentle with him," she said appreciatively.

Charlie shrugged. "Who would have guessed I had it in me?" he jested; Charlie Pace the rock star, cradling a baby. Charlie Pace the drug addict, singing under his breath to a baby. No one who had known him at all before the crash would have ever believed it.

"I knew you had it in you," Claire said firmly. He had been nothing but kind to her since the crash. "You always were that way around me." She smiled and leaned over to kiss him softly, still holding the baby against her chest.

Charlie smiled at her when they pulled back apart. "I suppose I do have it in me," he agreed, and kissed her again.

_I can love you like that_

_I can make you my world._

_Move Heaven and Earth if you were my girl._

_I will give you my heart;_

_Be all that you need._

_Show you you're everything that's precious to me._

_If you give me a chance…_

_I can love you like that._


End file.
